The following question was received from Carl Lavin, managing editor at Forbes: Recently, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a jump in the unemployment rate to 10.2%. Some economists think we could be looking at 10.5% by early next year. Given these grim forecasts, how do you counsel recent college graduates and others entering the […]

The recent Galleon hedge fund scandal made headlines with household names like Intel, Google, and Hilton caught up in the scheme. And while many people breeze by this as another story about greed on Wall Street, there are solid underlying lessons that can help anyone make better financial decisions: 1. If it sounds too good […]

In a recent survey by the AARP, they found the following startling information: 4 of 10 parents over 45 have had to help their kids with their bills 33% of retirees have had to help their kids with their bills and have stopped putting money into their retirement account. 14% have cut back on medications. […]

The Federal Reserve is meeting today and tomorrow and the money is on a 25 basis point cut in rates, down to 2%, and then a pause from the rate cuts. As the fed knows that this is the expectation, and there isn’t any fed noise about it being wrong, it’s likely that it will […]

Today’s FT reports that Mars along with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has bought Wrigley, the chewing gum giant for $23,000,000,000.00. Mars has put in the majority of the money – going to all equity, but Buffett and Goldman put in a chunk of dough too – all debt. This is the quintessential Buffett deal. A […]

Economics is the study of how to allocate scarce resources. Finance is the study of time, risk, and money. On one’s birthday, the most precious of resources, and the key to finance, comes to the forefront: Time. Individually, we don’t know how much we have, but we know it’s limited in quantity, and once we […]

In a AP article today, it was pointed out that some of the clients of Bernie Madoff actually made money as a result of what were probably fraudulent efforts on the part of Madoff. This was because they invested for a long period of time and periodically took some money out. So they did get […]

A good friend of mine passed me at the turn today and said he just bought a condo in Las Vegas. To his credit he doesn’t feel that he got in at the very bottom, but the deal look good, so he went for it. What’s a few percent when you can get a view […]

The UAW ended an over 30 year run of no strikes today when the workers walked out. One issue is the continual loss of union jobs due to closing plants and the union wants to stop that, although I don’t see how they can reasonable ask GM to predict car sales and production capacity into […]